Women Surviving Apartheid's Prisons by Shanthini Naidoo Donna Bryson

Author:Shanthini Naidoo, Donna Bryson [Shanthini Naidoo, Donna Bryson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781682570982
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Just World Books
Published: 2021-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The cells were grey cement floor, and not much else. The draft that came in under the door brought the cold. There was mesh over a single small window, and a naked light bulb, very bright—for others, no light. Hours became days, became weeks and months with little changing for Nondwe apart from her mind running riot.

‘What did I do for a year? Sjoe. In the morning, I would do my exercises and my loo, then after wash myself in the bucket. I had to get soap, when I could. I had a toothbrush and toothpaste sometimes, but that would get finished and you don’t know when you would get it again. Then, I would wash my clothes and fold them neatly. If you put the clothes under the blanket and sit on it, it would take out some of the wrinkles. Before the loo bucket comes out, the breakfast has already been there waiting.’

Nondwe has a forthright way of storytelling. ‘Some days, they take away the bucket early, other days it is with you when you eat. You don’t see anything or anyone. I don’t even know who took the bucket. The room was so small. We were supposed to have time to exercise but we didn’t get that. Not a single day did I see anyone else. Their plan is that nobody must know who you are. Whenever a door is open you must stand up to attention as a prisoner. Even if you don’t see anyone, you have to do it,’ she says.

She believes that lying on the cold floor made her feel ill for most of the day. ‘If you were a favourite you got an extra mat. Otherwise, we had three thin blankets.’

She, too, feared anything that was given to them. ‘If they gave you medication, you didn’t take it. We didn’t trust them. Something in the food was not right. Maybe it was the cold, maybe the food, but I know for a whole year, my menstruation stopped.’

The international community frowned on South Africa’s detention and treatment of political prisoners, and expected them to be treated well if they were detained.

‘Every second week a magistrate would come around to the cells and ask, “What is your complaint?” He would try to speak English, isiXhosa and isiZulu. After four times of telling him my complaints with no results, I said, “I’m not answering anything” and I just looked at him. Eventually I said, “I’ve been telling you, I don’t get exercise, I don’t get anything from my people, no visits. My people are far away, not even a letter arrives. Why must I say I’m all right?”’

That resistance was futile, Nondwe would learn.

‘During the day I walked, up and down the cell. It’s small (1.5 by 4 meter). One time I found two pins. I took a piece of thread and tried to crochet. Then, I would undo it, and do it again. We had more than a year of this, only interrogation in between and once or twice to the Synagogue for the trial.

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